


Full Circle

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Iron Hearts [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, And Bruce Wayne Also Has A Heart, And Bruce gives it to him, Angst and Humor, Bat/ Cap confrontation, Bruce Feels, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Bruce Wayne, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, just a lil imbetweenie until I get to the other stuff I have planned for this, thanks for all the positive reaction to this!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 12:55:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10190333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: "I’ve never met anyone else who understands,” Bruce says, echoing Harley’s words to him from a few weeks ago when they had talked about her maybe ex maybe not.“Me either, and it ruined most of my life because I thought I was wrong, not the world around me. With you I don’t have that pressure. You have no idea what that means to me.” Tony wasn’t sure anyone would, even Harley despite all their similarities.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for all the positive responses to the first installment! I hope you like this one too :) It's something short that starts technically half in the first part with a Bat/Cap confrontation and moves forward from there. This is a lil inbetweener until I get to the other stuff I have planned for this.

Bruce doesn’t expect help when he goes out at night to attempt to keep crime down, but he gets an unexpected visitor roughly a month after he took Tony in. He recognizes the costume immediately though and an unexpected wave of hatred flows over him. He tempers it of course, emotions had their place but this wasn’t the time or the place.

“Captain,” Bruce says, voice altered by some device Tony made after spending hours making fun of his attempts to disguise his voice with Harley. They at least found it amusing but he did not.

“Batman,” Steve says inclining his head a little. When Bruce doesn’t respond he speaks again, “I understand that you’ve been working with Tony.”

“Who I work with is none of your business,” Bruce says in a tone that wasn’t meant to be harsh but it comes out that way and then some. The Captain looks surprised at the venom in his voice but Bruce can’t help it. He remembers it so clearly, the look on his face when he asked Tony why he left the Avengers behind. Tony had look so hurt, but more than that he looked angry and defensive as he explained what really happened.

There were things Bruce was willing to bend the rules for, and there were things that were black and white. What Steve Rogers did to Tony was selfish and cruel to an unusual degree. Lying about the death of someone’s parents was not something you ever did to a person no matter the reason. It was unforgivable and nasty and Bruce wasn’t convinced Steve knew that after learning of that backhanded letter Tony received.

Telling someone that you were sorry didn’t involve telling them they were only sorry that you disagreed with them. After what he did Steve should have to hand Tony the world on a silver platter to even _consider_ forgiveness, not write some backhanded letter that blamed Tony for actions that weren’t his own.

“You seem… angry,” the Captain says cautiously, body language shifting like he was expecting a fight.

Bruce draws himself straighter, surprised to find himself smaller than the Captain though he didn’t show it. “I can’t say I approve of your methods, Captain. And I wonder why you care if I work with a colleague you have no interest in,” he says in a cool tone.

“I never said I had no interest in Tony, actually I need him to come back,” Rogers says cautiously.

“Actions speak louder than words, Captain, and your actions make you deplorable at best,” Bruce snarls. “How could you have kept something as important as his parents’ death from Tony? You know he told me once that you told him to stop playing hero because he wasn’t anything special. From where I’m standing, Captain, you should follow your own advice because you only fight for yourself. You’re no hero, not to the people.” Not to him, he means.

Bruce knows that he’s taken things too far, that he’s pressed too hard and he knows it’s a personal reaction, not a professional one but he can’t help but think that in this case the personal is professional. There were things you didn’t do to a person, and one of those things was mess with the death of a parent. Bruce knew all too well what that did to a person and he held no respect for someone who didn’t understand the importance of family.

“Tony will stay where someone appreciates his work and we both know that isn’t with you,” he tells Rogers, spinning on his heel and walking off as his cape billows out behind him.

*

Bruce, Tony notices, is odd. Sometimes he was too concerned with Tony and sometimes he didn’t seem to care at all. None of this matched with the way he treated Harley, though the two seemed to have an unspoken agreement that if Harley quit her villainous ways Bruce would give her space. Tony though, Bruce spent time with him in the lab laughing and joking with him and the next minute he was gone. He was starting to realize what being in a relationship with himself was like. Still, he gave Bruce space when he needed it because he knew better than anyone that being pushed into a relationship you weren’t sure about too fast would end in disaster. That’s what happened with him and Pepper- he’d been sure, then unsure, then back to being sure, and then she expected him to be someone else and he wasn’t prepared to do that.

So he lets Bruce flit away and back again because he understands what it’s like to be unsure and scared of something new, especially when the thing that was new had autonomy. That meant that opportunity could walk away at any point in time and that was terrifying. As someone who has had near everyone walk away from him Tony knew what it was like to be scared of a new connection going bad, and what it was like to have his worst fears realized. Harley seemed to take Bruce’s distance as some sort of match making challenge and Alfred gave Bruce disapproving looks when he started to shift away from Tony again but Tony understood and he never pushed.

“Do you know what it’s like to watch your parents die?” Bruce asks, making Tony jump with his sudden appearance. Bruce had a bad habit of doing that and Tony was going to have warn him about his heart problems if he kept it up.

“Unfortunately,” Tony says, thinking of that video he watched, how it almost felt like the gun Barnes pointed at the camera shot him in the face too.

“Than… than you’ll know how hard it is to… to pick up your life again. I was a kid, I didn’t even know how to handle what I saw,” Bruce says quietly.

Tony lets out a harsh laugh, “age doesn’t make it easier. I was seventeen when my parents died and well into my forties when I found out that they were actually murdered. I handled it horribly both times. God knows how you managed as a kid.” At Bruce’s age he had been more interested in circuit boards and trying to win over his father’s affections. He was highly successful with one and not at all successful with the other. “Did Alfred send you?” Tony asks when Bruce doesn’t continue.

He nods slowly, “and Harley. They think we have something and they’ve both told me not to squander it.”

That was weird, Tony was usually the one who was told not to blow it and it was strange being on the other side of that. “Whatever it is we have isn’t going to be squandered because you don’t know how to do relationships the way people normally do. That doesn’t bother me,” Tony says honestly. He’s spent a lifetime hating himself for not being able to do things like other people and pretending he was proud of that difference, he’d never make Bruce feel like his way of caring was somehow inferior because it was different.

He and Bruce sit in silence after that comfortably, simply enjoying the other’s company.

*

“Want to steal the Batmobile?” Tony asks Harley, who all but leaps off her seat.

“ _Yeah_! I’ve always wanted to take it for a test spin,” she says enthusiastically. Tony grins at her and they set off to Bruce’s batcave to mess with his toys. He was less touchy with them now, more willing to let Tony tinker so long as he didn’t let Harley near anything explosive. Tony agreed that was for the best after the last time she went near an explosive creation of his…

Tony breaks into the Batcave easily considering he revamped all Bruce’s security measures and the Batmobile was even easier to steal. Tony knew how it worked after sitting in it for a few minutes so it was hardly difficult to break into it and take it for a joy ride. What _was_ hard to explain, though, was why Bruce found them doing donuts in some parking lot in Gotham blasting AC/DC.

Harley leans over grinning, “fifty points for Batman,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows.

“We’re not running over Bruce, Harley. We are going to drive the fuck away and pretend we didn’t steal the car though,” he says, speeding out of the parking lot at top speeds in reverse as Harley cheered loudly.

When they make it back to the Batcave Bruce is already there out of uniform looking attractive in dark jeans and one of Tony’s faded band shirts. “Next time you two want to steal my car, don’t,” he tells them with a disapproving look on his face.

“How’d you even beat us here?” Harley asks, pouting at him.

“I’m Batman,” Bruce says and walks off.

“Your humor is rubbing off on him and I don’t know if I like it,” Harley tells him, leaning back into the car to grab her bag.

“I can appreciate it,” Tony says.

“That’s because it’s your humor,” Harley points out.

*

“Steve called earlier,” Tony says as Bruce settles down next to him on the couch. Bruce raises an eyebrow but says nothing, apparently pulling his Batman persona in his personal life now. “He said you had a few uh… _choice_ words for him,” Tony continues.

Bruce gives Tony a dazzling smile that almost makes him blush. Pretty people, they weren’t new to him but Bruce was the kind of pretty you saw on heavily retouched magazines, not on real people and certainly not naturally. He keeps himself together though because he isn’t fourteen and he had _questions_ for Bruce. He raises an eyebrow, copying Bruce’s earlier action when he doesn’t get a response right away. “I only told the truth, no need to think it was anything special,” Bruce tells him.

“Well Steve didn’t seem very impressed,” Tony says. Which meant he wanted to know what it was that Bruce said to him. Steve wasn’t easily perturbed and Tony wanted to know how Bruce got under his skin. For science.

“That’s hardly my fault,” Bruce says casually.

“But what did you _say_ to him,” Tony asks. The only reason he even knew that this was a thing that happened before Steve’s call was Bruce’s offhand comment a week or so ago about having a run-in with Cap that didn’t end well.

“I told you before when I talked to you about this last,” Bruce says, not giving anything away. Damn his mysterious act, Tony needed to _know_ things.

Tony grins, “I know what you told me you said, but I want to know the specifics. Come on, throw an old man a bone,” Tony says, taking a page from Harley’s book and pouting.

Bruce throws back his head and laughs, “don’t let Alfred hear you call yourself an old man, he might have words for you. And I told your Captain that maybe he should take that heroing advice that he gave you, the quit while you’re ahead advice, because the only person he serves is himself. And that you’re with me and that wasn’t changing.”

Tony can’t help the smile because that was just _precious_ on the best of days, and something tells him that last bit had a double meaning. “Ouch. Guess he didn’t take it well but you’re right. I’m with you and that isn’t changing anytime soon. I actually like it here.” One, he actually felt appreciated and wanted, and more importantly he could see the way his help was making a difference in Gotham. Bruce, he was holding it together before, but with new tools and Harley’s inside knowledge he was doing far better for the city. Crime rates have actually gone down, though that didn’t make too much of a difference considering Gotham’s extremely high crime rate. But it was something, and it was far more than Tony got elsewhere.

Bruce reaches out and wraps an arm around Tony’s shoulders and pulls him in close. “Good, because for better or for worse I’m attached and maybe for the first time someone actually understands how I work.”

And Tony got that. Bruce didn’t bitch at him for staying in the lab all day and night, only that he didn’t sleep enough, he didn’t complain when Tony explained how his tech worked, he listened, and he didn’t get jealous with all his time spent with Harley, he understood that they were friends even if Harley had a thing for being overly sexual. But hey, that was just who she was and Tony knew she meant nothing by it. More than that though Bruce didn’t expect him to fit into some mold of acceptability like everyone else in Tony’s life, even Rhodey to an extent.

“I understand how you work because I work that way too. People have told me my whole life that I was broken, but I think now that I’m away from all that I can see that their perception was broken, not me. It took me a long time to learn that though, and I wouldn’t ever put someone through the unfair expectations that I was put through.” Those expectations have ruined almost every aspect of his life and he wouldn’t wish those on his worst enemy.

“Thank you. I’ve never met anyone else who understands,” Bruce says, echoing Harley’s words to him from a few weeks ago when they had talked about her maybe ex maybe not.

“Me either, and it ruined most of my life because I thought I was wrong, not the world around me. But I’m done with that and I’m tired of trying to be someone I was never meant to be. And with you I don’t have that pressure. You have no idea what that means to me.” He wasn’t sure anyone would, even Harley despite all their similarities.

Bruce’s arm tightens around his shoulder, “oh I just might. People have never understood me either, and I never thought I’d find anyone that understood the Bat. Then I found you in that alley,” Bruce says, shaking his head. “It _had_ to have been a sign, finding the one person that understands how I work in the same place I lost the only other people that understood me. It’s like things have finally come full circle.”

Tony doesn’t say anything; he just leans into Bruce’s embrace and enjoys the feeling of the arm around his shoulders and the emotion radiating from Bruce strongly enough to feel. Things have come full circle for Tony too, after all those years of pretending to be Howard, than attempting to live up to Steve and failing the same way twice because he wasn’t either one of those people. And now, with Bruce and Harley he found two people that- between them- understood every fucked up aspect of who he was, and all the good too. He wouldn’t trade that for the world.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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